Measurement and Explanation of Family Change in Australia in Comparative Perspective: A Longitudinal Approach

Research of the causes and consequences of changes in Australian families has been mainly cross-sectional and aggregate in nature. This can provide a misleadingly static picture of a dynamic reality in which people s circumstances change throughout their life course. New international evidence suggests that dynamics at the individual level have more important impacts on people s lives than the current arrangements in which they are living and that current arrangements are better explained using past dynamics. The Family Dynamics Research Unit proposed here would use newly emerging Australian longitudinal data sets and new statistical procedures to advance such research in Australia.